


Compromising Hypocrisy

by fairdeath



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Graphic Description, Hunter AU, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, M/M, Magical Realism, Science Fiction, Slow Burn, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 10:37:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17323421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairdeath/pseuds/fairdeath
Summary: "Find the energy source, find what’s causing it. Whatever you have to do to stop this ache the mizuchi is feeling,” if the plea was not apparent prior, it becomes so, Genji's head bowed. “Please, Han-“ Genji begs.“Send me all the information you have,” Hanzo interrupts the unnecessary show of desperation, “I will investigate and do what I can.”





	Compromising Hypocrisy

**Author's Note:**

> This was started as a part of NaNoWriMo 2017. I ended up setting it aside due to circumstance and haven't touched it since. I cleaned up what I had in my word doc with light editing, but this is otherwise untouched. I have a plethora of lore that remains untapped, but holds potential.  
> A personal peeve of mine is when people write Hanzo as though he talks like he wasn't raised in a high-class, high-profile family in which English is a secondary language. You might feel his use of language is a little obscure because it seems to be the norm to perceive him as speaking like a native speaker.

The dull thrumming of waving vibrations against Hanzo’s thigh through the sleek, steel grey dress pants while waiting in line to order his morning caffeine hit is unexpected at best. Hanzo is a man of poise, and yet prior to caffeine in his veins, his grasp to retrieve his phone is sloppy and unrushed at best. The rolling waves cascade through his fingertips is an anchor to cut through the fog of fatigue in his mind, the screen alight with the name _Genji Shimada (Work)_. It drives anxiety through his core, like a steak knife to the chest. He hasn’t heard from his brother for weeks, their relationship like a broken vase held together with masking tape at best, and prior to that the only cause for his work contact to be saved to his phone was for intel confirmation during his own work of investigations of supernatural irregularities and interferences with the natural order. Dark eyebrows furrow, the drumming melody of a too-fast heartbeat ringing distantly in time with the vibrations at his fingertips. After a moment of locking his emotional reaction in a box to be left untouched, his thumb taps the button to accept the incoming call, and he pulls the device snug against his ear.

“Genji,” Hanzo murmurs in an attempt to keep his privacy despite being in the middle of one of the busiest coffee shops. He voices the name like a curse and a prayer; their relationship is always teetering on a tightrope for Hanzo.

“ _Brother, I’m sorry,”_ Genji breathes, voice full of static white noise from the receiver and bubbling truth, “ _I wouldn’t ask this of you if it weren’t serious, but you’re the best person for the job,”_ and _oh_ if that doesn’t simultaneously light a fire in Hanzo’s eyes and under his feet at once. He stands a little taller, straight as a ramrod with curiosity, takes a step forward in the line, his laptop buried in a case knocking against the briefcase of a dishevelled looking office worker.

“What is it?” Hanzo asks, filing through _decades_ of information in his mind of various elemental classes, shifters, manipulators, magic-users, trying to pick where Genji most likely needs his help if his work, global elite too powerful to be kept together in the first place, requires him. Genji had always been weak to other elementals and spirit-bearers, but he’s not sure on his co-workers.

“ _I don’t_ know,” he spits through, to which Hanzo resists the habit of going to wipe the spit which would have landed on his person if they were face to face. “ _I just know it_ hurts _, and you’ve always been better at energy-presences than I have,_ ” the defeat evident in his voice, in his admission of defeat despite their natural inclination to competition, proves the severity to Hanzo within seconds.

The Shimada clan are titled as being supernaturally inclined, but not a supernatural class. When born of the bloodline, the Shimada family have always grown to show evidence of a connection to a dragon spirit. This manifests as emotions, thoughts, feelings the spirit displays, as heightened senses when consciously connecting to the spirit, as controlled manipulation over the dragon’s element. The stronger the bond, the worthier of the connection one is, the more power the spirit presents to its host. Genji had always shown a strong relationship with his mizuchi, a river spirit, but the connection had grown exponentially after the years of meditation and self-searching Genji had undergone in the last decade.

While Hanzo’s had faded with his okami.

He pretends this does not trouble or distress him.

“How long have you been feeling like this?” Hanzo asks, hesitant to hear the answer. He trails behind the sea of grey suits in front of him, inching closer to the bitter taste of anti-exhaustion. He knows Genji wouldn’t have called if it hadn’t been ongoing and he hadn’t exhausted all other pathways. Genji hesitates for a moment before his voice reaches Hanzo’s ear, quiet and vulnerable.

“ _I don’t know_ ,” he admits, “ _the more I utilize my connection or meditate, the stronger the feeling. I’ve been hesitant to continue doing either for_ …” Genji pauses, and it’s a definitive hesitance to reveal the length of time this has been a weight on his shoulders. The rumble of his mizuchi under his skin which wraps around his shoulder couldn’t help with that either. _“It has been months since this feeling started, and it only grows, despite trying to ignore the connection or the energy-presence. The river is suffocating, Hanzo. Please, I need you to investigate, to find the cause of this_ burning _and stop it_ ,” his begging tugs at Hanzo’s sinewy meat wrapped heart. He wants to help, he truly does. He owes it to Genji after their conflict-riddled history, owes it to himself to prove he’s better than his dark past of family-driven Yakuza crime rings.

“What can I do to fix it?” Hanzo asks. He could ask Hanzo to call upon his okami, to fill the skies with dark clouds, heavy with cleansing rains and wash the energy from the river, could ask him to stop whatever is increasing the energy-presence, could ask him to seek revenge on the cause. There had been few cases reported to Hanzo’s office as of late, leading to a lull in workload. He could use the vacation, regardless. Hanzo treads on the back of the suit’s foot in front of him, but he’s one step from the counter, from requesting the invigorating sludge.

“ _Find it for me_ ,” Genji begs, which is far easier said than done in a world of infinite classes of supernatural beings, and half of those bear dark energy that may be the cause. Hanzo opens his mouth to say as much before Genji continues, “ _find the energy source, find what’s causing it. Whatever you have to do to stop this ache the mizuchi is feeling_ ,” if the plea was not apparent prior, it becomes so, Genji's head bowed. Unluckily for the plea, the suit in front has moved aside, leaving nothing between him and asking the apron-wearing worker to inject his caffeine via an intravenous drop. He steps forward, fishing his debit card from the pocket his phone previously occupied as a temporary roommate. He concisely recites his regular order, a long black with nothing else, _yes,_ he’s sure, before palming the chip in his card against the reader. “ _Please, Han_ -“ Genji begs.

“Send me all the information you have,” Hanzo interrupts the unnecessary show of desperation, smiling politely, tightly, to the poor soul who had been forced to take his order, “I will investigate and do what I can.”

The sharp exhale of relief in his ear does not go unheard, “ _Thank you, brother. I will send you all the information I have by this evening_ ,” Genji promises firmly, all business once more, “ _I owe you_.”

Hanzo swallows against the bile threatening to bubble up in his throat. “Nonsense,” he fights, “it's I who owes you,” and it will always be Hanzo who owes Genji. He doesn’t know if he can repay the forgiveness his brother has given him.

“ _Let’s agree to disagree once more_ ,” Genji returns, the threat of sibling banter just beneath the surface, “ _we will speak soon._ ”

It isn’t yet 9 am on Tuesday morning and Hanzo has been commissioned by his brother to investigate the dark energy which has of late begun to plague the river.

Hanzo decides to wait in the queue to order for a second time once he retrieves his drink. It’s going to be a long day.

 

Genji’s email arrives in his inbox at 3:03 pm, titled with the name of a river Hanzo is not familiar with. He opens the email to see a wall of text, coordinates, and several attachments.

He opts to make his third coffee of the day before reading through it.

The information was far too simple for what the length of the email had implied. A river, a length of it spanning roughly two miles in length the mizuchi is able to specify the energy is strongest at, details on the intensity of feeling and when it has increased, and an attachment with a map to a small rental unit Genji had found and set aside for Hanzo for a span of two weeks.

He packs two bags. One bag holds the obvious clothing, underwear, shoes, and personal effects. The other, stronger, less conspicuous suitcase, holds silver bullets, holy water in a gourd, his sniping attire, several daggers and thigh slips to keep them in, while his bow and arrows a fall into their respective slips.

The drive is long, quiet. Hanzo spends the majority of it in silence, the setting sun in his eyes and his mind full of questions. The river Genji has been so affected by is more than 400 kilometres from Genji’s residence, and yet he was so affected by the river’s health. His connection with his dragon spirit was always strong, but had grown exponentially when he had taken time to focus on the connection, on the bond, on the second soul under his skin. The stronger a bond, the stronger the feelings, and Genji’s mizuchi felt river health in the surrounding areas far more widely than Hanzo could have ever hoped for of his own okami. Mizuchi, a river dragon spirit, showed the health of nearby water bodies, and much like the kodama in a forest, the healthier a river, the healthier and livelier the dragon. Genji had been in such an emotional distress, more than Hanzo had heard from him since they were children, over a river with energy-interference more than a four-hour drive from his home. It speaks volumes of his bond, of his acceptance of the dragon, of his acceptance of himself.

Hanzo wishes he could be the same, but with a history like his, there was very little chance of ever proving his worth to his okami spirit that curls against his forearm, sedated and distant.

Hanzo is a man of family. He was born into a notorious family line in a country where supernatural classes are made to be ashamed of their status, of their differences. Those who fought out against this brought dishonour to their families, their town, their community, and to the Shimada clan who ensured civility from enhanced persons. He was trained from a young age to be a warrior, to know how to overcome any opponent no matter the distance between them, a protégé with both swords and bows. The eldest child of the clan leader and therefore heir to take his place should his father fall, the weight of the impending responsibility held strong on his shoulders. The _lack_ of responsibility evidently did not force his brother to be the same.

There is a Japanese proverb that says, “A child who does not resemble their parents is a child of an oni.” Until Genji, it was just that – a proverb, a metaphor, a saying to poke fun because it’s funny to imply a child is born of a troll-like demon of unpleasantries. It was not apparent in Genji’s early life, but the more he matured and presented evidence of his connection to mizuchi, the more the Oni connected to him became apparent. Genji would have heightened senses in every form, move far too quickly for who he should have been, was able to shadow-step and heal faster than should have been possible, even with the healing properties of being in water when tied to a mizuchi. It upset the clan elders. It went against every fibre of the clan’s position on how supernatural classes should be, especially when Genji used his abilities to impress strangers, to bring them back to the Shimada estate, to allow himself to give a piece of the Shimada clan to every person he brought back.

Hanzo expected it when they told him to put a stop to Genji’s actions, to sever the ties to the oni in his veins. It hurt, _God_ , it hurt to think he was going to have to do whatever it took to stop Genji from acting the way he did, the way he always had.

There was so much blood. Hanzo had superior swordsmanship, that was obvious, but watching the deep red garnish Genji’s shoulder, forearm, chest, back, face, thighs was far too much for one man to see. Hanzo had put down hundreds of supernatural class beings in their area in his life, it had been decades since his first kill, a vampire who had been draining the lives from his food’s veins, and yet seeing his brother covered in blood, in cuts too deep to keep muscle to bone, the wispy tendrils of mizuchi wrapping through the flesh, trying to hold it all together, the oni _screaming_ , a howl not unlike a crying wolf at a full moon, Genji’s flesh dark and ashy, like a fire just moments after burning too hot and too fast, claws extended from fingers and feet. Hanzo had watched the life leave Genji’s form, a grey steam-like substance rising from his body in shoots of energy. His knees ached as they fell against the hardwood, exhausted not from the fight, but from the emotional backlash. His brother silent and seeping multiple life forces from his broken flesh, the sword slipped from the sweaty grip Hanzo’s right hand held it in, the steel clattering, high pitched ringing in his ears matching the echo of steel. His chest had met the dark wood beneath him, all senses dulling to a faded black before he, too, lost consciousness.

When he had awoken, his skin was ash-riddled, his fingertips clawed like a terrified stray kitten, his shoulders wide with muscle mass he couldn’t find a memory of having. His vision was far too clear in the dark of the night, his hearing told of footsteps on the other side of the estate, of heartbeats of the workers, of the distinct _lack of body_ next to him, only the scabbing of blood left to seep into the creases in the wood.

He took down his brother, slayed him in the light of the full moon, watched the life energy seep out like a warm breath in cold air.

Apparently, it was the oni’s life leaving Genji, rather than Genji’s own. And that oni had taken hold of Hanzo’s body. The definition of an unpleasantry, really.

He, like Genji, had left the Shimada estate for the last time that night. Packed a bag of his essential possessions, withdrew any funds he knew would not be missed in cash, and left the country. The failure of not killing Genji, and now Hanzo, the pride of the family, was riddled with the touch of an Oni? He was too prideful, too fond of keeping his heart in his chest beating, however painful it may be. The Shimada had no power outside of Japan, power dropping off significantly the further from Honshu you look.  That’s why Hanzo made a name for himself as a P.I. of supernatural irregularities. That’s why Genji had found him ten years later. They rebuilt their relationship on work-connections and mutual assistance. Genji, in his ten years of healing physically and emotionally, had forgiven Hanzo, had understood why he had done what he had done, had grown and moved past it.

Hanzo had remained ashamed of his actions, of the oni wrapped around his ribs like a creeping vine. He grew familiar with the burden he deserved. He worked to redeem himself, to take just causes and dispense force only where necessary. The oni in his veins allowed him to see the energies more than he had ever before, like an extension of a person’s charisma, but one that applied to all entities. It filled his vision with an overload of colours and rising steam tendrils. It took time, far too many years, and focus, but he learned to supress the powers of the demon, the vision enhancement, sound enhancement, the speed and strength. It dulled the ash of his skin to what he was prior to the incident, only evidence of its presence in the oni face which swam under his skin, rested against his clavicle and chest on his left side, a direct intertwining of his okami and oni.

Not that he could utilize his okami by call. Not since he had hurt Genji. He didn’t deserve to be empowered by anything, not even the oni.

He turns on the radio, hopes the echo of plastic, cookie-cutter pop will dull the jealousy and longing he feels, the stir of the oni and his dragon that react to his emotions. His right hand, fingers cold, stroke over the dragon’s scales in an attempt to sooth her. The drive is longer after that.

 

When he arrives at his destination, he decides to investigate the area before resting for the night. His car, sleek, dark, inconspicuous and yet too nice to not raise suspicions at the fact it is parked in front of the pathway through the forestry. Hanzo gracelessly tugs his dress pants off his hips while remaining in the driver’s seat, unbuttons his blue dress shirt, and replaces it with his dark _gi_. He is a man of habit, after all, and in the darkness the forest provides, he doesn’t particularly want to wear white, nor cover his dress pants in filth or splinters, no matter how creased from his long day. He pulls a hair tie from the pants pocket, tugs his hair, like strands of silk, into one handhold before wrapping the tie around the locks. His bow is pulled from its case, retrieves his quiver from the trunk of his car. There’s no reason to be unarmed, and he’d rather not need them and have them on hand than need them and _not_ have them.

He selects ‘do not disturb’ on his phone, but pulls up a map, places a marker on the start of his two-mile length of river he needs to search by. It isn’t far, barely two miles in from the parking area. It is directly north of his position, so he replaces his phone with a good old-fashioned compass, burying the device in the breast pocket hidden beneath his outer layer of his _gi._ His phone is placed under the driver’s seat of his car, and he unravels the car key from his key ring, locking it away in a tiny zippered pocket next to the compass.

Hanzo steps away from the car, bow and quiver on his back, and looks deep into the forest. He closes his eyes for a moment, breathes in deeply, absorbs the surrounding sounds of the environment. The oni on his left chest itches as he calls to it, its face twisting in anticipation, and its touch sends tremors through Hanzo’s spine as it expands across his body. Ash rises to the surface, painting his skin in invisible brush strokes, electricity zapping across his flesh. The feeling ceases half way down his bicep as it reaches his okami’s territory. She refuses to budge, but that is fine. The okami seeps through the cracks of her home, turns the surrounding tattoo of sky and clouds into a stormy sky, his fingertips red and raw as the claws twist through. A familiar choking sensation works over his Adam’s apple, jaw tingling as the fire and ash hold him firm. His eyes burn as they transform, the searing white glow of his enhanced vision, naturally selected to scare away any potential hunters, has ached since day one, like a cleansing soap and inside-out contacts buried in the back of his eye socket, but he knows this will pass.

He opens his eyes, and it’s like passing into a new world.

Energies are so clear, so defined. He hears the heartbeat of a far-off deer, the tapping of a bird at its feet, the crack of a leaf as it breaks from its branch. He sees the kodama of the forest now, spirits with a symbiotic relationship to the forest, which display its health. The trees breathe green energy, it rises above to canopy, fades into the night sky. Hanzo takes note of the area, of the six kodama bunched together by a tree, their translucent figures leaping across gaps in the branches, walking across twigs like they are tightropes, weightless and unaffecting on what they touch, bare the enhanced growth, tiny deep green shoots growing in their shadowed steps.

That’s a good sign for the forest itself. The river is another entity entirely.

There are no signs in the area, only a worn-down path travelled by locals on walks, no wider than two feet, depressed from the surrounding forest floor by four or so inches. Remnants of human energy rise from where their footsteps fell a swimming pool of green, red, blue, pink, yellow, all representative of the owner’s character. He withdraws slightly, feeling overwhelmed with the forest’s, its habitants’, and passer-by’s energies like a child’s sweaty palm after holding artificially coloured candies. It dulls the energy to a faded wisp, like a well-worn white shirt, dulled with age, memories of stains if you’re looking for them. Hanzo takes a deep breath, feeling the oni’s excitement to take hold, and pulls from his stamina reserve in the oni, hoisting himself up onto a low hanging branch of a tree. The low hanging branch is still seven to eight feet above the ground, top of the branch another foot above the base of the extension. His clawed feet, two entirely too large things, dig into the dirt before pushing off like the ground is nothing more than a trampoline base. He climbs up the trunk of the tree, clawed fingers pulling a little further, before he lands himself to the joint of the branch, knee curled, palm resting on chipped wood for hold and balance.

It feels _good_ to use the oni, as much of a punishment as the oni itself is. The spirits within him are as much a part of Hanzo as _Hanzo_ is, no matter how he feels towards them. He inhales the humid, cool night air, and it’s like breathing after being held under water. Everything feels so much clearer, so much lighter. He uncurls and stands tall, resting his palm on the trunk for stability, swallows his surroundings, places a mental marker on his goal, and he runs. In leaps and bounds, he makes his way through the treetops, clawed toes leaving whispers of his presence on the branches. He tries to miss the kodama along the way, not for fear of hurting them, they would just pass through his form, causing a feeling of falling for a moment.

He very quickly forgets about the compass in his breast pocket. He doesn’t need it, not when the river is bleeding such intense dark energy. It isn’t dark in that it’s an evil force, necessarily, but dark in that whatever it is had experienced trauma and hurt and a lack of control, a hastily dug well where negative energy could pool to. Even with his senses dulled, the deep purple tendrils and a smoke haze across the area. He sees it with perfect clarity, the way it creeps up the tree trunks and envelopes it in a choke hold. The kodama are restless near here. The environment isn’t _unhealthy,_ but it isn’t comfortable. They itch at their forms, heads snapping to look around them, their heads clicking incessantly.

 He goes deeper.

When he reaches the river, there’s distress evident in the roll of the current. It’s not a wide enough space to let most watercrafts through. Perhaps a dinghy would fit, though based on the area and the wider river not ten miles out, he doubts the area is well travelled. The energy mingles with the water, like food dye dropped from far above. It causes a sheet on the surface, and Hanzo is hesitant to investigate how it reacts to his touch. He turns to the left, upstream, wrapping around the tree trunk for balance and hold. The tendrils of energy grow more intense, more restless, more rage filled that way, and it fills him with dread for what he might find. His brows furrow, deep lines forming between them, as he shakes his head in disbelief. No wonder Genji was so affected by this. Hanzo has no connection to this environment, and even he feels weighed down with the energy here.

His toes bury themselves in the soft soil on the forest floor when he lets himself slip from the tree tops, a loose forelock of hair dancing from the inertia. A soft _humph_ falls from his lips upon impact, barely a whisper in comparison to the rustle of the leaves and chirping of crickets surrounding him. He takes hesitant steps, wary of the energy’s fog holding his arms down, weighing down on his back. Hanzo is doubtful he’ll encounter anyone by the river at such a late time of night, but it doesn’t hurt to be wary.

When his feet carry him to the source of the energy, the tendrils warp towards him, wrapping around his ankles and tugging in a way that isn’t necessarily a force of physics. Hanzo comes to the edge of the force and drops to a couch, deft fingers of his left-hand toying with soil, dirt rubbed between the pads of his fingers and thumb. It’s all loose, which it should be, but the soil has been aerated by something. By _someone_. But _why_?

Such a dark energy could be caused by many things, most of which involve death of a supernaturally enhanced being who had lost control of their enhancement, of their humanity, a loss of empathy and morality, or witchcraft and summoning. Either _a lot_ of something died here, but the lack of bodies make that unbelievable, someone has been performing far more dark magic than should be done by any one person lest they wish for their soul to be consumed by the darkness, or summoning of many strong ethereal beings with too much power to be in this plane at any given time whatsoever.

Someone’s fucking up tremendously. Hanzo plans to cease it.

As he goes to stand, something stops him. The oni does not allow for him to rise, its face of horns and rage in a grin as it keeps him down like a tent pick through his knees. His dragons, distant, always distant, thrum closer to the surface than he’s felt in months. His left arm, a swirling mess of scales, horns, teeth, and tongue, lifts in a straight line, from where it rests limp at his side. It rises until it is perpendicular with his spine, sprouting directly past the centre of his being, before it ceases him. He stops with a jolt, inertia causing him to sway, right arm jutting out to catch himself on. He raises a brow at his forearm in curiosity, but not in question. The spirits within him have always understood the world more than Hanzo, and they have guided him on his travels and investigations more than any book on the topics ever could. He waits for the dragon, watches its snout sniff from the skin just beneath his inner wrist, from the jut of his ulna, forked tongue slapping, itch like the feet of fly tip-toeing across the bend of his wrist. It still for a moment, angling its head slowly towards the inside of his wrist, skin pulsing outward beneath it as the dragon looks to the soil at Hanzo’s feet.

The dragon plunges to the earth, Hanzo’s head whips backwards from the jolt of it, before his fingers dive beneath the dirt, burying his palm into the soft soil, only stopping once the dirt reaches to the base of his thumb, fingers pin straight, specs of dirt and decaying plant matter burying itself beneath neatly trimmed nails. The dragon’s spirit ripping from his physical form has never been a comfortable sensation, has always felt like tripping down a flight of stairs, a tense tearing from inside his chest cavity. His breathe comes in shallow stints for the moments when the okami travels through the soil. Hanzo isn’t sure on what it’s looking for until he watches it burst from the dirt a few inches from his fingers and collide into his sternum, knocking the wind from him. The dragon scurries around his chest, clearly anxious from the separation of its physical form and home, then slips between the creases and crevices in the oni’s territory and returning to its place of residence. Hanzo’s breath comes quick and shallow at the anxiety he feels bleed into his skin from the scales of his okami, his eyes frantic as they jump across his expanse of vision, trying to absorb what the okami saw.

There are bodies buried here. Their shapes light up, the dragon’s memory quickly fading from Hanzo’s direct vision, but definitely not from his own memory. Deep, more than six feet under the surface, at least a dozen people, skeletons with scraps tied to the bones, like meat thrown to an apex predator before vultures and those who take from scraps could get to them. Several bodies have stakes driven into the centre of their chests, splinters from the wood of them lodged into flesh, into their victims’ hands. The others all have broken necks, if the skulls being in boxes several feet from any torsos is any indicator. They, for the most part, still wear clothes, wearing fashion which fits the era.

The combination of the clothing he sees, and the aeration of the dirt imply this is a fairly new occurrence. The strength of the energy implies these beings aren’t long dead, a few weeks at most for some, a few months for others, based on the deterioration of their corpses. The stakes through the heart show great physical strength by whoever did this, and the decapitation of the victims implies this was personal to the offender. It takes a long time to decapitate someone, Hanzo knows this from his work with ghouls, who would eat through their victims’ throats, tear them from their lovers of the night and eat through their necks, who Hanzo would find evidence of someone who returned the favour. It’s _always_ personal if they take their time. It means it’s personal to the offender, the longer they spend with a victim, as their chances of being caught increase exponentially the longer they spend with them. The cleanness of the entry of the take, as clean as a blunt force, man-made cavity in your chest can be, shows a great deal of brute strength and that the offender had time to place the stake cleanly, straight line to the heart, not angled upward, downward, or sideways. What the lack of defense wounds means on the staked victims, Hanzo’s not sure. There isn’t much evidence of restraint, barely indents in their wrists. The decapitated ones, though, fought back. Their arms are covered in cuts, slashes, bruises, broken bones, chunks of the neck and flesh torn from the body. Their faces are covered in blood, dirty, and clumps of hair off their heads are missing. If it weren’t for the fact their bodies are buried, Hanzo would’ve thought the decapitated victims were unlucky hikers who met their match with a wolf in the forest.

A werewolf, then.

Hanzo decides he’s had enough for one night after that. He stands slowly, the dragon curling firm around his bones. The revelation that Genji’s feelings of unrest were correct, that it’s much worse than anticipated, that there are corpses of _previously_ human beings, all showing signs of the attack and deaths being personal, is a lot to absorb. His mind races, he questions if he’s truly the right person to find the offender and stop them, to cleanse the river of the energies.

Hanzo is a strong man, but ‘find a murderer, seek revenge on the personal killings, and cleanse the river of said personal killings’ is a _lot_ for even an Olympic weightlifter to carry.

He inhales slowly, lets the humid air pool in his chest, feels the bitterness of decaying leaves and moist soil bite at the back of his throat, feels the energy cascade across his body, wrap around his torso, feels the tendrils poke at him like an amateur tattooist. His mind races with the thought of how much work is to be done when all he knows is a dumpsite of the victims and that they either died unexpectedly or incredibly painfully. He can do this, though. It’s what he’s paid handsomely for, after all.

The first step is to rest for the evening, though. The day has been long, and he needs rest if he is to level-headedly approach this. He pulls the gourd from the ties at his hip, unscrews the cap from its confines, the weight of it in his right hand, watches the silver dance in the remnants of moonlight that cut through the treetops. Toes curl into the soft soil at his feet as he takes the few steps closer to the river’s edge, the current weak, but the roll of it washing up to lick at his fingers as he dips his left hand into the lapping edge. The dragon pulls at his skin in anticipation of the manipulation of the water. Hanzo rolls his wrist, fingers stiff, jutting straight out from his palm, letting his fingertips form loose circles as he slowly drags his hand up. He can feel the physical weight of the water, the cup sized amount that lifts and rises with his hand, following his movements like the water is strips of ribbon tied to his fingertips.  His circles draw smaller, tighter, until the water forms into a thin spiral, mimicking the tendrils which draw up from the ground. His fingertips guide the water into the mouth of the gourd, letting it roll up the spherical edges, filling the gourd with the murky water, tainted with the darkness. Hanzo plans to use this for reference, to investigate and experiment how best to remove the dark energy from the cool life-giving force of nature.  

**Author's Note:**

>  _please_ tell me if you see any errors! please let me know what did and didn't work.  
> pretty please come talk to me on my social medias! [twitter](twitter.com/dirtynuttmeg) and [tumblr](dirtynutmeg.tumblr.com)  
> if you're into rpf, i've started beta'ing for [dobrikovaz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dobrikovaz/)'s fic, "[california never felt like home to me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16974738)"


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